


Luke 23:43

by MathildaHilda



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Catholic Imagery, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Character Death, Non-Linear Narrative, Survivor Guilt, Uncharted but its Sam instead of Nate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:28:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22801774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathildaHilda/pseuds/MathildaHilda
Summary: Nathan coughs blood in his face, a smile on his paling lips, and Sam thinks - all too sudden - that this is what the end of the world looks like.
Relationships: Nathan Drake & Samuel Drake, Nathan Drake/Elena Fisher, Rafe Adler & Samuel Drake, Samuel Drake & Elena Fisher, Samuel Drake & Victor Sullivan
Comments: 5
Kudos: 49





	Luke 23:43

**Author's Note:**

> Luke 23:43,  
> Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."

He thinks he had made his peace with it.

Thinks he’s made his peace with the possibility of his handholds breaking, crumbling, and sending him plummeting to his death. There are endless possibilities when it comes to dying, and every single one of them is as potent as the next.

Save the last one and everything; the last one, always, _always_ , being Nathan.

( _until the very end, no matter what, he’ll go before Nathan does_

_he has to_

_otherwise – in his own, very educated opinion – he’s failed the ultimate test of being a big brother_ )

( _take care of your brother, and all those other people you’ve learned to love, slowly but surely, and die when it is your time_

 _isn’t that the whole point?_ )

It’s not his time, back then in Panama.

It should’ve been, but, for once, he is way too fast for his own good.

The will to survive, somehow, gets the grip of him and never quite lets go of him.

Not until later, when he washes the blood off his face and begs God or whoever gives a flying fuck about them to wake him up, and trade his selfish luck with the one left behind.

( _left behind; abandoned, and dead, on dirty concrete_

 _because three idiots got too greedy for anyone’s good_ )

The guilt is a crushing one, and one he’ll carry, no doubt, for the rest of his miserable life.

He thought he’d made his peace with dying; but, turns out, he hasn’t. And, perhaps, he never quite will.

~

He has an existential crisis every time he stares into the mirror during the first five years after Nathan slipped through his fingers.

Not because he’s the one left behind; it feels like it should be, but, for some reason, it’s not.

No, it’s all in the eyes. _Every_. _Time_.

It’s always the fucking eyes.

( _their eyes are too similar for anyone’s good_ )

He hides the memory of his brother’s eyes behind a wall that he calls indestructible, and one someone a little more well-versed in psychology than him would call _‘crumbling.’_

So, seeing as he’s never actually met with a shrink; he has no real words for it.

The wall is so often made up of cheap jokes and cigarette smoke, and it’ll do just fine, and no one will bat an eye at whatever comes out of his mouth or in the way he moves around the space shaped so much like his brother, forever aged twenty-five.

It’ll do.

Everything will have to do.

Sullivan learns quickly enough to step around the shadow rather than through it and talks on and on about something new and, no doubt, valuable he’s gotten a tip about. Victor’s always been good at adapting, and for once, Sam appreciates him without saying much of anything. 

( _there’s nothing to talk about_

 _so, they don’t_ )

Elena is spitfire rapid and adapts to a situation that doesn’t require anything of her. She never knew Nathan; she shouldn’t have to adapt to it. But, he knows, it’s not his past she adapts herself to.

Not quite.

She adapts to something new and different as if though she’s done it before, holds her camera much the same way she holds a gun, and runs for dear life as if it’s the one thing she’s ever known. It might also have something to do with the fact that they always seem to be chased by some greedy git or other, _but hey_ , she might’ve done it before anyway.

They share a canteen, hiding in a cave from whatever goons are chasing after them now, and he smiles, for the first time, without jokes or mischief hiding behind it.

No, he doesn’t think he likes her like that. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t. Sure, she’s brave and smart and on the pretty side, but no, he doesn’t think he likes her like that.

Nathan would’ve, though. He knows his brother enough for that to be true.

But, he doesn’t say it. There aren’t any words for what he wants to say.

And, if there are, well, then, he probably shouldn’t say them anyway.

~

_‘Is he always like that?’ Elena asks Sullivan as soon as Sam disappears out of earshot._

_(he hasn’t, not completely, but he’ll let her believe)_

_‘Like what?’ Sullivan asks her in turn, fingers gripping the cigar in a vice-like grip. A little more pressure and he’ll snap the thing in half._

_‘Distant, and, I don’t know….’ She cuts herself off, possibly unsure of how to continue._

_‘Constipated?’ Sullivan supplies. Elena stifles a laugh._

_‘_ Not _what I was going to say. At least, not in that way.’ She says and gestures toward him with the empty bottle still in her hand._

_Sullivan takes a moment to smile at her before he replies with, ‘survivor’s guilt would be my best guess, but you never know.’ He shrugs._

_As if it was just one of those simple things._

_‘Survivor’s guilt?’ She asks, concern heard clear through the wall behind which he had now stand._

_‘It’s a tough business – treasure hunting or whatever we should call it – and… not a whole lot of us get to stick around.’_

_‘So, why keep doing this?’_

_It’s a simple question with a maybe not so simple answer._

_Sam’s not even sure himself, most of the time, as to why he’s still doing this. He should’ve quit, years ago, but at some point, it started to feel more and more like an addiction; a hole too deep to climb out of, no matter how many times he’s climbed out of actual holes with much worse, possible outcomes._

_‘Honor. Love.’ Sullivan says, and leaves it there. Sam doesn’t jump around the corner to correct him because he’s not even sure if it is wrong, to begin with._

_Instead, he walks around the corner with three beers in hand, a smile on his lips, and tries not to imagine the possibility of a different setting with much the same people._

_Elena says nothing, and accepts the beer like the skilled liar he knows she can be; she worries, and it almost makes him feel guilty._

_She doesn’t ask about the shapeless shadow that wraps around Sam like a cloak. Maybe, he would’ve allowed her to ask._

_But, she doesn’t ask. And, so, he doesn’t reply._

~

Sam goes to a church on a Saturday.

It’s a one-time thing, and something he hasn’t done since way-back-when when he was forced to go despite protests that were louder than the organ in the chapel.

He might pray once or twice, but he doesn’t quite know how much of him can still be called a believer. He was, once, but now seems to be the time for doubts, both big and small.

He glances at the confessional, sees the small line of people standing guard outside, just waiting to rid themselves of personal sin.

Dear old Jesus will have to do, that Saturday in August, months between his silent, drunken memorial for his brother, and the next job sans Rafe because Rafe can go fuck himself with that hollow cross for all Sam cares.

So, he stares up at the man himself, all carved and gilded wood. His crown of thorns looks heavy upon his head; chin pressed against his chest. Dead for sins he didn’t commit and which did not belong to him.

( _it must be a crime to be that kind; that benevolent_

_but, then again, he is jesus; everyone knows the story, whether they want to or not_

_kindness, it seems, in the end, usurps everyone of everything_ )

He stares up at the altar, sits down in the pew, and prays for _something_.

For Nathan. Mom. There’s not a whole lot of others to pray for or about, so he leaves it alone after a while, and decides to speak freely. Or, whisper into clasped hands, leaned over his knees, and eyes closed tightly in painless fury.

“Tell him, I’m sorry,”

Armageddon’s already come and gone. So, maybe, it doesn’t matter _what_ he says, because one can be quite colorful when angry at the world.

( _there is no dismas here_

_just dear old Christ_

_he’ll have to do_ )

~

When a ghost damn near breaks down his door with non-stop knocking, it’s three in the goddamn morning and Sam’s hungover as all hell, so it really shouldn’t take anyone by surprise that he slams the door in his brother’s face; ghost or not.

“Whoever sent you, I don’t want anything to do with you.” He shouts through the door, sounding just as childish as he feels.

The voice that comes back, followed by another loud knock, is muffled by the door;

 _“Are you seriously going to leave me out here? C’mon, man.”_ The voice says, a little older and a little deeper, and he almost doesn’t open the door again. Fourteen years, nine of those which he has gone without seeing a constant ghost wherever he turned, and now here they go again. Whatever was slipped into his drink last night, had to have been good.

It was either that or his lack of sleep was catching up.

 _“It’s freezing!”_ The voice calls, the loud chattering of teeth exaggerated to make the point come across.

Sam doesn’t a peephole, meaning he can’t look and confirm for himself, so he opens the door just a smidge and feels, even more so than before, like a child.

He must look like one too, because Nathan Drake smiles, for a minute, and somehow that is enough for him to open the door wide again.

“You’re real?” He asks, tentatively. Almost afraid, he reaches out and pokes his brother – the ghost – in the shoulder. The man, practically relaxed, goes with the motion and leans back at the touch and gravitates back toward him once he’s taken his finger back, whole and unmarred by the surrealness of the moment.

He doesn’t joke about Sam’s obvious doubt, or say anything about the black eye he’s currently sporting – courtesy of some loud schmuck down at the bar – and instead only looks at him with dimples in his cheeks, gray hair by the temples and those same goddamn eyes Sam’s been working on forgetting every time he looked into the mirror.

“Sure am.”

“You got shot,” Sam says and points to the whole of him.

“I did,” Nathan says and places a hand over his ribs, where he is, without a doubt, sporting some serious scars.

His knuckles are scarred too, Sam sees – a finger a little more crooked than the rest – and his eyebrow’s cut at the edge, almost hidden by the impressive amount of hair.

The smile’s the same. The eyes. The laugh. He’s got all it takes to be a proper ghost.

( _‘ghosts aren’t real,’ Elena says from her place on the couch, cross-legged and with her laptop in her lap, typing away at the latest article, about Bangkok or some such._

_Sam scoffs from where he stands by the counter and flings a piece of cucumber against the wall when he makes a show out of waving the knife around to make his point come across with theatrics. ‘You sure? We’ve seen our fair share of ‘em,’ he replies, eyes following the slice as it goes flying._

_It hits the fridge with a_ ‘thwap.’ _and slides along the door, his eyes following it as it goes down._

_Elena twists on the couch to look at him. ‘those weren’t ghosts,’_

_‘how would you know? You’ve got no proof of it_ not _being true, as far as I know, seeing as you don’t have any footage to back you up.’_

 _he ducks behind the counter when a pencil flies his way_ )

“How are you even here?” Sam asks, hand pressed against the doorway, blocking any entrance, but freezing them both to their cores.

“Seems pretty simple to me; prison guards are terrible shots.” That’s when he lifts his shirt, showing off the three exit wounds, straight through the ribcage and too damn close to everything vital.

“Didn’t quite take, but almost did.”

Sam feels as if though he could cry.

“Stormtroopers the whole lot of them,” Sam quips, and finally breaks into a watery smile. He reaches out again and pulls Nathan toward him.

~

_‘C’mon, I’ll grab you!’ he shouts across the space between them. Rafe fumes behind him, for some reason or other, but Sam’s not about to let Rafe’s anger issues fuck this up more than they already have._

_He lies flat on his stomach and locks eyes with Nathan, who nods in confidence, even when his eyes flare up in panic._

_‘Jump!’ he calls, reaching as far as he can and dares, and Nathan does just that._

_He jumps._

_But, his running start is too short, and he leaps off too soon. Sam reaches just a little more, grabs him around the wrist, and digs his fingers into his brother’s sleeve._

_He’s almost up._

_They’re almost free._

_And then, the gunfire is loud and close, and he closes his eyes for a second, but, after all, a second is all a bullet needs._

_And, so, when he opens his eyes again, all he sees are Nathan’s._

_(if he’d only closed them for a nanosecond, then maybe,_ maybe _, it wouldn’t end like this_

_maybe then, he would’ve had more time)_

_His arm slips off the building, and Sam tugs; almost has him over the edge of the building, when he realizes just why Nathan’s eyes look the way they do._

_There’s no panic, no fear. Just a quiet realization for both of them._

_‘No,’ is all his voice seems fit to say. ‘Get up, Nate, c’mon,’ he tugs again, but it’s all ~~dead~~ weight from here on out. _

_(don’t you dare use that word_

_he’s not dead_

_he can’t be fucking dead_

_a little premature thinking, isn’t it, sam?)_

_Nathan coughs blood in his face, a smile on his paling lips, and Sam thinks – all too sudden – that this is what the end of the world looks like._

~

“How’d you even get out?” Sam asks, taking the glass of water he left on the counter before he decided to fall asleep on the floor, and downing most of it. It tastes terrible, but he drinks it anyway.

Nathan smiles ruefully, without much joy, and stares at his shoes for a moment, before he looks back up; “you’re not going to like it.”

“I haven’t liked the last fourteen years of my life. Hardly think it’d make a difference.” Sam says and shrugs.

“Rafe got me out.” He says and seems to regret the words as soon as he'd said them. Sam almost drops the glass.

“ _What_ ,” it’s not a question, existing more as a statement of the current situation, and Nathan does little else but twist his mouth and nod.

“Yeah. About a year ago.” He waves a hand around, as if though he could turn back time to the moment of his release.

“Took me a while to find where you were, but, once I did, I bailed as soon as I could. Rafe didn’t seem to have much use of me anyway, seeing as I am not exactly an expert on Avery.”

“He _still_ chasin’ that?” Sam scoffs into his glass, where he takes another sip. “Well, then I guess we should propose a toast for that asshole that he at least did something decent with his life,” Sam says and mockingly raises the glass. Nathan coughs a clipped sound that might’ve been called a laugh.

They’re silent for a minute, and Sam is about ready to pinch himself.

“I called the prison. Called _everyone_ in _fucking_ _Panama_. They all said the same thing.” He says, and Nathan looks up.

“We killed a guard, Sam. _Rafe_ killed a guard. They weren’t about to let me go.”

“Fuck Panama,” Sam places the glass back on the counter, harder than necessary.

“Well, at least it was warmer there than it is here.”

“Says the guy who’s been blowing up a cathedral in Scotland for a year.”

“I’ll take it up with the big man once I get there.”

~

It’s been two months since he and Victor last met up, and he almost wishes it’d been longer.

Because, then _maybe_ , the old man would’ve forgotten their last escapade that ended in yet another city added to the list and the infamous story – among fellow treasure hunters, that is – why you should not piss off the richest oil baron in the world.

Still, Sam waltzes in as he usually does, smelling vaguely of alcohol and disrupts the man’s morning cigar with a grand presentation Sullivan can’t say he ever would’ve expected.

“You are not gonna _believe_ the morning I’ve had,” he says, smiling like a kid on Christmas morning, and using much the same theatrics as one.

It’s the smile that makes Victor pause, because Sam rarely turns up at his house smiling, out of all things, and so, he lowers the cigar and stares, almost dumbly, up at him.

“Really? You’re not gonna ask? C’mon, Victor, humor me,” he says and smiles wider.

“Every time you’ve asked me that question, Sam, I’ve gotten more gray hairs than a man my age should have by now,” Victor says instead, putting the cigar back between his lips.

Sam looks somewhat disappointed now, as he should, and lets his shoulders drop.

“Fine, then I’ll ruin this _very_ nice surprise that I found left on my doorstep.”

And, so, that’s part of the story of how Nathan Drake came back from the dead and Victor Sullivan almost set his own house on fire.

~

_Sam can remember the moment Nathan ran into his room – all of eight years old and sleeves and socks soaked through – with perfect clarity._

_He’d read a book stolen from Mom’s office, feet propped up on his desk, and Led Zeppelin blasting through the busted speakers he’s still trying to repair. Nathan trips over the threshold, out of breath, and almost soaked to the bone in water._

_“Is there a leak?” Sam had asked him, eyes still on the book and glancing at his brother through the corner of his eye. Nathan had looked at him, pale-faced and blue-lipped, and stuttered something that – in hindsight – sounded an awful lot like a story of the what and the how of his misadventure with the wet socks and the wet shirt._

_But, right in that moment, it did not, in fact, sound like any kind of explanation Sam’s ever heard._

_He had thrown the book onto the desk, swung the chair around, and was up on his feet and crouched in front of Nathan before much more could be said, hands planted expertly on his brother’s small, thin shoulders._

_“What is it?” He’d learned to worry, learned to care._

_“Th-the tub,” Nathan had stuttered._

_Nathan’s shirtsleeves were colored pink, and there was a wet, metallic smell to the air around them, and Sam didn’t understand until it all was far, far too late._

~

Elena meets them in Scotland, after their trip to Italy and almost-encounter with Rafe and a very near and dear meeting between Sam and Nadine – which had resulted in a less-than-gracious flight through a window – far better dressed for climbing than Sam.

But, then again, she usually was, and Sam only focused on the cold rather than the possibility of falling to his demise.

They’ve gone Go-Pro, for the last few, less dangerous finds – those she could easily report about without the possibility of being chased to the ends of the Earth – but they’ve still had to replace the Go-Pro twice.

Both times, it had been dropped in the water from a considerable height. And, for the record, neither of those mishaps were Sam’s fault, even though someone might disagree – loudly – about the truth of that particular statement.

She knows the basics and what the goal that is, for the most part, nothing more than a little race against an old frenemy if only just to piss him off a little more, and she also knows that someone new is accompanying both Sully and Sam in the little propeller plane, while she takes a chopper and a little more stable descent toward the monasteries closer to the coast.

She knows the basics, and stops dead once she sees the – unmistakable – brothers crest the hill on which she stands, Go-Pro strapped to her chest.

“I take it you’re the addition,” she says with a smile, professional as always, and shakes Nathan’s hand once he’s reached the top.

“Oh, so he gets help, but not me?” Sam says more than asks, somehow already out of breath. “You’re not the newcomer here, are you?” she replies and pats him on the shoulder.

Nathan stares with an air of awkwardness about him, smile almost shy, but it doesn’t last long, because Nadine’s guys really love their dynamite.

_(‘and here we are,” Rafe says, chest puffed out like an arrogant, pompous bird, hands in his sides and a smile on his too-thin lips._

‘a smile fit for crows _,’ Sam thinks, glumly, and sticks his own hands deep in his pockets, and looks to the massive structure just waiting to collapse into the sea._

_it’s not a too impressive sight if he has to be completely honest. A dull, gray cathedral on a bed of dead grass and under a sky of molten lead. Perhaps it had been impressive, once, when it was new, but Sam lost most of his interest for the promise of treasure at the bottom of whatever grave Avery decided to stick it under._

_‘we’re doing it for Nate,’ Rafe had said on the flight over, where Sam had said barely a word, only stared out the window at the rolling clouds passing beneath them. Had he been of sound mind, he would’ve snapped back that none of this was for Nathan._

_it was all for Rafe. Sam didn’t want a penny, no matter how tempting it sounded._

_he lasts all of a month, and then he leaves in the middle of yet another argument; the kind that could rival that of a rowing couple, and turns away from the promised treasure before Rafe can think to – quite literally – stab him in the back.)_

“Here we are,” he says and smiles, turned to both Elena and Nathan, arms spread wide and almost bursting at the seams at the joy it all brings him.

Madagascar lies beneath them like a painting waiting to be unearthed, shining golden by the light in the ceiling.

And then, once again, Shoreline blows a hole in the floor.

~

They add another city to the list, disappear off the coast, and Elena almost takes a bullet pushing Sam out of the way of yet another Shoreline goon.

Nathan pulls a pin between his teeth and lobs a grenade at the ginormous truck, while Sam laughs his head off at the absurdity of the situation.

Yes, he’s fought other, fellow treasure hunters before, but this isn’t quite how he imagined his brother’s return – if ever there was to be one – and he can do little else but laugh while Nathan does his very best to not turn up dead and ruining the absurd picture Sam’s drawn up for himself.

The whole chase for some lost pirate gold seems absurd in a way, seeing as he’d given up on it all those years before, and it gets downright stupid when Nathan turns around and runs _back_.

Yes, they’d said they would like to reach it before Rafe did, but now Rafe is there, and Nathan – good and kind-hearted Nathan – wants to finish what Rafe started the moment they left Panama.

So, his little brother turns back, teeth gritted in fury and hands closed into cramping fists, and Sam finds he has little choice but to follow him.

Nathan inherited his stubbornness from Mom, and it is surely what will get him killed.

Screw the treasure, Nathan all but snaps when Sam comes within earshot, hidden only by a thin, crumbling wall, listening with bated breath to threats made vague by Rafe’s stubbornness to be in the right.

Nathan’s been gone fourteen years, and this anger is palpable and dangerous. This anger, however often trod upon in their youth, has never reared its ugly face at Sam.

Oh, how he’d hate to be Rafe. He almost laughs again.

Then, the beam falls. And, whatever kind and stubborn scheme Rafe was carefully weaving goes out the window, and forward falls the sword – expertly, sharp, and unspeakably deadly despite its age.

Too bad that treasure, too, has kept its weight in its old age.

The planks beneath their feet snap apart, the water rushes in, and Sam is transported back to a rooftop under a hail of gunfire.

“C’mon, little brother. You haven’t asked Elena out yet, can’t have you stuck here,” he says and heaves the beam, Nathan diving beneath it as the water rises, and the flames hungrily lick the sides of the ship.

“Who says I’m asking her out?” Nathan resurfaces, out of breath, and an arm held against his stomach, where the beam had made itself cozy.

“I am,” Sam says, clasps a hand around his brother’s neck and leads him to a hole in the wall.

It’s Nathan’s turn to laugh in a strange setting and for strange reasons, but Sam knows the giddiness will pass as soon as Sully’s landed the plane, and Elena’s yelled at them enough.

Perhaps it’s wrong to laugh at others' misfortune, but _oh_ how fun it is to win.


End file.
